SOUTHERN CLIPPINGS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume IX, Issue 2520, 22 February 1872, Page 3

SOUTHERN CLIPPINGS.

Up to tho 15th instant the subscriptions in Christchureh for the relief of tho sufferers by tlie Hood at Grreymouth had reached £6S 17s 6'd. At Dunedin the Mayor had acted promptly, and called a public meeting, and subscriptions are coming in freely. At lunaru the sumo promptitude was shown, and other places are following the good example.

The " Heathen Chinee " lnis fallen among the I'hilistines at No Town, Nelson goldlields! A number of tho recently arrived " first cousins to the moon " Tisited No Town, but. Uu:y were driven away at the point of the sluice fork. As soon as the Chinese made their appearance a mob collected, and among other acts of violence stoned the unfoi'Lunate Celestials. They were camped to the nam ber of about twelve or thirteen, on a shingle island, and were afterwards overtaken by the flood, and narrowly escaped by means of an old bjat. The report in tho Otago Dailj Times of the assault case, Graham v. Cagli, contains the passage, from Graham's Revi w, which was the cause of the fracas. It contains a disgraceful insinuation against Signora Cagli, and wo can only regret that Mr. Graham was not more severely handled. The Magistrate, in giving his decision, said:—"He understood that the proprietor of the paper in question represented it to be in the interest of ihe working men, but if the working men made it tho means of attacking mon who were their betters for the time, they did not know how soon any of their own female relatives

might be villified. Therefore, 110 false feeling of sympathy should go with hiir. (Suppressed applause.) Tho artielo was a tissue of slaxder and vileneas, and no words he could say as a Magistrate were sufficiently strong to express his toolings against the person guilty of publishing such an article.—Post, February 17.

The delay in the arrival of the San Francisco mail has exeitei the indignation of a writer in the Otago Times. Ho says :—ln the mutter of mail services New Zealand enjoys

an unenviable pre-eminence. Never did people pay so much money for such inefficient service. It seems to be all tho same what the

lino is, or how much we pay for it. Wo never got punctuality, and now, of course, have ceased to look for it. Like tho eels that got used to being deprived of their skins, we have got accustomed to being " skinned" of our cash. The last two mails, it is true, have been unavoidably delayed in some degree, but even before them wo never got our letters on tho due date.

The Grey River Argus of the 9th instant, says : —The Argus of this morning wue produced under circumstances that we do not believe any other journal in the colonies ever had to contend with. The water stood two feet, six inches on the office floor, and wo lisve publicly to thank our staff for their exertions under the trying eircumstancos.

The Hon. Defence Minister arrived in the Colonial steamer Luna on Thursday evening, and was accompanied by Colonel St. John and Mr. Bush. We believe it is the intention of Mr. McLean to remain hero a week or ten days, during which time he will be able to settle native matters which requiro his presence.— Taranaki Herald, February 17.

At a recent meeting of the committee of thu Canterbury Flax Association, it was stated that a Christehurch iirm had executed an order for a Liverpool house of ten tons of double stripped flax at £45 per ton. There are four candidates for the office of first Mayor of Wangunui : —Messrs. Fnincia Williamson, W. H. Watt, John Garner, and W. Hutcheson.

A man named W. Rae died the other day at Ross, Westland, from a rupture of the heart during excessive vomiting. A brewer and his family at Ahaura (Nelson goldfields) had to sleep in the brewing vat, their house being flooded by the river.

A quartz reef has been discovered near Ross, Westland, and good prospects obtained from it.

The nomination of candidates for the seat in the House of Representatives rendered vacant by the resignation of Mr. Eyes, took place on the 14th inst., when Mr. Seymour and Mr. Ward were proposed. The Bhow of

hands gave 27 for Mr. Seymour and 14 for Mr. Ward. A poll was demanded.—Nelson Mail.

The Nelson Mail says:—"Entertained at Wesiporfc with Mr. O'Conor's trumpet" tongued declamations against the Superintendent of Nelson, and welcomed to Charleston by the spirit-stirring strains of the brass band belonging to the Great World Circus, whioh

was kindly lent for the occasion, Mr. Fox must have had rather an exciting timo of it during his visit to tlieae two towns, the inhabitants of which appear to have considered the presence of the Premier among them as an opportunity not to be neglected for making him their confidant, and pouring into his ear their numerous m'ievances, all of which, according to Mr. Munro, one of the members of the Westport deputation, are lo be remedied by granting to them ' some form of local selfgovernment.' " The Nelson Examiner eays:—""We have just been reading tlio speech of his Honor the Superintendent of Wellington, dolirered on the occasion of laying the foundation stone of the new Provincial Government Buildiugs at "Wellington. We never in our lives read more unmitigated twaddle. It is impossible for us to tell what the eifect of this speech may have been upon the audience upon which it was inflicted ; but we venture to say, without fear of contradiction, that if the political intelligence of a Wellington audience is to be moasured by the fact of such a speech as this being addressed to it by its first citizen, that intelligence must take a very humiliating position."

The Wellington Independent sftya:—"Tha delay in the distribution of the English mail via San Francisco, which arrived at Auckland on Wednesday last, is excessively vexatious. We are utterly unable to understaud why it should take four days to convey the mail to Wellington. The mail was already nino days behind contract time wlieu it reached Auckla -ul > and the Government ought to have made fc . r il * dU , lrib " tiorl throughout the colony in 3pMd,e6t sible manner, and at any reasonable expense. We do not pretend to tmin,' WES | attempted to be done—all we is tliat the delivery 0 f the ma.? has been delayed f ar beyond all reasonable limits. And it appears also that the Wellington, Kelson, West Coast, and rieton mails might have been brought on by the s.s. Wanganui, which arrived at Wanganui from Onehunga on Friday, had any doubt existed as to the dato of the sailing of the •Nevada. That such doubt existed may be gathered from the fact that the Wanganui was offered the mails for the places mentioned, but the captain would not bring them under a subsidy of £100. Seeing that for this sum the whole of the mails for Nelson and the West Coast could have been expedited by at least a couple of days, we must confess that t onsidering the great delay that had already ocl ' un 'ed »n the arrival of the mail, the post-, °ffice authorities were penny wise and pound polish. As it is, it will be extremely difficult u or P er3 . on9 iu some parts of the colony to reply to r letters by the next outgoing mail, which, according to the time-table closes at Aucklt* n . 0u ' The Canterbury and Otago mail s will not reach those places before l . or 13th, and only two or three days Wx thus be afforded for replies by the outgoing l. 1 * West Coast: will be still worse off, for f? was not to leave the Manukau unt. Saturday, and huving to call at Taranaki, . , e ma ils will probably uot reach the West Ou* P or ts at least before Wednesday or Thurk,^ 8 ?'. next, quite too late for replies. Wo can .discover no excuse for the bad management whio.' l for this month at any rate, made the Francisco mail service a source of embarraSv 1 " ment rather than convenience to the public.